Related papers: Hot and cloudy: High temperature clouds in super-E…

Characterizing rocky exoplanets is a central endeavor of astronomy, and yet the search for atmospheres on rocky exoplanets has hitherto resulted in either tight upper limits on the atmospheric mass or inconclusive results. The 1.95-REarth…

Clouds form in the atmospheres of planets where they can determine the observable spectra, the albedo and phase curves. Cloud properties are determined by the local thermodynamical and chemical conditions of an atmospheric gas. A retrieval…

Recent studies have unequivocally proven the existence of clouds in super-Earth atmospheres (Kreidberg et al. 2014). Here we provide a theoretical context for the formation of super-Earth clouds by determining which condensates are likely…

Clouds are an integral part of planetary atmospheres, with most planets hosting clouds. The understanding of not only the formation, but also the composition of clouds is crucial to the understanding of future observations. As observations…

Over the last decade, precise exoplanet transmission spectroscopy has revealed the atmospheres of dozens of exoplanets, driven largely by observatories like the Hubble Space Telescope. One major discovery has been the ubiquity of…

One of the key goals of exoplanet science is the atmospheric characterisation of super-Earths. Atmospheric abundances provide insight on the formation and evolution of those planets and help to put our own rocky planets in context.…

Sub-Neptunes are among the most common type of close-in planets found in our galaxy, yet their bulk composition remains largely uncertain; H-rich envelopes overlaying rocky cores, volatile-rich planets, and carbon-rich interiors all remain…

Little is known about the interaction between atmospheres and crusts of exoplanets so far, but future space missions and ground-based instruments are expected to detect molecular features in the spectra of hot rocky exoplanets. We aim to…

Deciphering the role of clouds is central to our understanding of exoplanet atmospheres, as they have a direct impact on the temperature and pressure structure, and observational properties of the planet. Super-hot Jupiters occupy a…

Clouds are ubiquitous in extrasolar planet atmospheres and are critical to our understanding of planetary climate and chemistry. They also represent one of the greater challenges to overcome when trying to interpret transit transmission…

We explore how well James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) spectra will likely constrain bulk atmospheric properties of transiting exoplanets. We start by modeling the atmospheres of archetypal hot Jupiter, warm Neptune, warm sub-Neptune, and…

The nature of sub-Neptunes is one of the hottest topics in exoplanetary science. Temperate sub-Neptunes are of special interest because some could be habitable. Here, we consider whether these planets might instead be rocky worlds with…

Recent observations indicate potentially carbon-rich exoplanet atmospheres. Spectral fitting methods for brown dwarfs and exoplanets have invoked the C/O ratio as additional parameter but carbon-rich cloud formation modeling is a challenge…

Over the past decade, observations of giant exoplanets (Jupiter-size) have provided key insights into their atmospheres, but the properties of lower-mass exoplanets (sub-Neptune) remain largely unconstrained because of the challenges of…

The study of exoplanets and especially their atmospheres can reveal key insights on their evolution by identifying specific atmospheric species. For such atmospheric investigations, high-resolution transmission spectroscopy has shown great…

The nearby super-Earth 55 Cnc e orbits a bright (V = 5.95 mag) star with a period of ~ 18 hours and a mass of ~ 8 Earth masses. Its atmosphere may be water-rich and have a large scale-height, though attempts to characterize it have yielded…

Atmospheric compositions for rocky exoplanets will depend strongly on the bulk planetary composition and the orbital position of the planet. Non-traditional gases may be present in the atmospheres of exceptionally hot planets. Atmospheres…

We hypothesise that differences in the temperatures at which the rocky material condensed out of the nebula gas can lead to differences in the composition of key rocky species (e.g., Fe, Mg, Si, Ca, Al, Na) and thus planet bulk density.…

A quantitative understanding of the nature and composition of low-mass rocky (exo)planet atmospheres during their evolution is needed to interpret observations. The magma ocean stage of terrestrial- and sub-Neptune planets permits mass…

Close-in lava planets represent an extreme example of terrestrial worlds, but their high temperatures may allow us to probe a diversity of crustal compositions. The brightest and most well-studied of these objects is 55 Cancri e, a nearby…